The letter Coolbaugh Township has sent announcing its intention to leave the Pocono Mountain Regional Police Department is "affecting morale" of the officers.

MICHAEL SADOWSKI

The letter Coolbaugh Township has sent announcing its intention to leave the Pocono Mountain Regional Police Department is "affecting morale" of the officers, according to Chief Harry Lewis.

Lewis told the five-person Coolbaugh Township Board of Supervisors on Monday night about the state of affairs at the department after the township said it is exploring its police protection options.

Lewis said the letter came as a "shock" to both him and the department. The police commission met just days before the township announced the intention letter, and it wasn't mentioned by Coolbaugh Township's representatives on the board.

"News of this caught us all by surprise," Lewis told the board. "It's very hard for our department and our organization to function when the future is uncertain, and everywhere we go, people are asking us about it. At traffic stops, at arrests, everywhere. It's hard especially when there are no facts or data to support why this is happening."

Lewis said it's natural for the officers and employees of the department to talk about the uncertain future. A department without Coolbaugh Township likely would be smaller, meaning the loss of officers and civilian employees.

"It's tough. The guys are really upset," Lewis said after the meeting. "There's been a lot of discussion in the last couple weeks between the guys. I've just tried to tell them, 'There are things that are out of our control. You just have to let it go and let (the chief and the police commission) worry about it.'"

Coolbaugh Township was the first municipality in December to write a letter of intention to drop out of the four-municipality police department by 2014.

The letter doesn't automatically mean the township is pulling out, and it can rescind its letter at any time this year. Mount Pocono followed with its own letter before the Dec. 31 deadline to leave at the start of 2014.

Coolbaugh supervisors have made it clear it is not their immediate intention to leave the department at the end of the year, but instead to explore every option for its police protection.

Coolbaugh is the largest of the four municipalities in the department, and at $2.1 million a year, is responsible for about 42 percent of the department's budget.

Supervisors agreed an option they aren't considering is dropping out of the department and allow the state police to cover its territory.

Instead, it could look to start its own police department.

"The state police are overburdened as it is," said Juan Adams, the chairman of the Board of Supervisors and one of the township's two representatives on the police commission. "That definitely won't be an option for me."

Lewis said he's worried the supervisors may be heading in to the process without fully realizing the work and research it would take to start their own department, and that he doesn't think a competent department could be formed in a year if that is the direction the township chooses to move in.

"Certainly this is going to be a long process," Supervisor Robert Zito said. "In the end, we'll do what we think is best for the 20,000 people of this township."